New legal clinic concentrates on cases of women languishing in the system for crimes against alleged abusers – Chicago Tribune

Her caseload includes survivors of abuse who acted in self-defense or in defense of their children, as well as women forced or coerced to assist their abuser in committing a crime. Sometimes they are women diagnosed with postpartum depression.

White-Domain recently earned release for a woman sentenced to six years in prison for stealing items worth less than $300, arguing that the punishment was too severe when balanced against the harm of family separation.

Since getting funding last year the Women and Survivors Project has represented 30 clients in 15 clemency petitions, 14 administrative advocacy cases, four resentencing cases, one post-conviction case, and one appeal.So far, five women have been released. Collectively that has added up to about 30 years of incarceration saved, White-Domain said.

The Women and Survivors Project, believed to be a rare full-time practice dedicated these specific kinds of post-conviction cases, was built on the work of a small number of Chicago attorneys who three decades ago began working on such complicated cases pro bono, mentoring and training a younger generation along the way.

Their work, Byrne said, grew out of research on domestic violence and also from firsthand observations. Byrne watched how the criminal system failed to see self-defense from a female perspective, such as the effect ongoing battering has on a person’s state of mind and perception of danger.

In 2020, the Albert & Anne Mansfield Foundation awarded White-Domain a grant to continue at the Illinois Prison Project, the statewide advocacy organization where she currently works. The Women and Survivors Project remains small — she is the only full-time attorney — but the grant could provide leverage to secure more funding.

Source: New legal clinic concentrates on cases of women languishing in the system for crimes against alleged abusers – Chicago Tribune

Former ‘slave’ speaks out about abusive sex cult being run from a rural property – ABC News

On an isolated rural property in New South Wales, a man has been keeping six women as sex slaves. One of his former partners is speaking out in a bid to help them and encourage others to come forward. Warning: This story contains descriptions of extreme violence and sexual abuse.

Davis was a prolific online writer, publishing dozens of lengthy posts on fetish websites describing his philosophy on “psychologically conditioning” his slaves “to be 100% dependant [sic]”.

He wrote about finding women willing to be “subjected to the abuses and traumas of the Stockholm syndrome like [sic] effects of enslavement” and described a “death protocol” which involved passing the “ownership” of his slaves to other men if he should die.

Sex worker advocate Lucy Price was shown some of the videos, as well as even more graphic content that wasn’t shared publicly.

Ms Price was so worried she messaged one of the women living at the Armidale house.

One of the women living with Davis responded that everything he did was consensual.

“We ensure that each person has autonomous, enthusiastic and informed consent,” she replied.

Ms Price was shocked at the response.

“Absolutely there’s no way, no-one would consent to being smashed in the head that violently, to the point where your head is like jolted. I don’t even know if she was even completely responsive,” she said.

Four Corners can also reveal Davis had a group of like-minded men who he was training to subjugate women.

The group used social media to recruit more female followers.

Cult expert Mr Ross said Davis appeared to be trying to “franchise” his sex cult.

Davis’s closest confidant and right-hand man was Joshua Clinch. He posted on social media about Davis’s mentorship and boasted of his plans to set up his own slave house.

Four Corners spoke to one woman Clinch tried to recruit to join a “chateau of submissive women in western Sydney” in late 2019.

Source: Former ‘slave’ speaks out about abusive sex cult being run from a rural property – ABC News

A terrible toll – Violence against women is a scourge on poor countries | International | The Economist

One reason domestic violence is more
common in poor countries is that money
worries are stressful, and men are more
likely to lash out when stressed. But there
are more fundamental reasons. There is
seldom much of a welfare state to fall back
on if women leave their husbands and cannot
find work. Family and neighbours may
judge them. In Africa the difference between
the share of women who have been
attacked in their lifetime and those who
have been attacked in the past year is relatively
small, suggesting many are trapped.

Education seems a promising avenue.
In the long run, it empowers women and
makes them less vulnerable to abuse. But
in the short run, it does not always help.

In sub-Saharan Africa women who attended
primary or secondary school are more likely to be abused
by their partners than those with no schooling.
Only university-level education correlates with a lower
likelihood of abuse. It may be that in countries
where universal education is relatively
new, a little schooling emboldens wives to
challenge their husbands, without giving
them the means to walk away. Work follows
a similar pattern. Women in Africa
who work are more likely to be abused by
their partners than those who do not.
Again, this may be because as women gain
a little more independence, their husbands
try extra hard to keep them down.

Source: A terrible toll – Violence against women is a scourge on poor countries | International | The Economist

International Women’s Day and the Existential Threat to Feminism | Women Are Human

Men have always been colonialists; womanhood and feminism were simply the next frontiers. My mind clouded over with dread as I realized how naïve I’d been at my failure to recognize this male rights movement that had infiltrated feminism and turned us against ourselves. I grew anxious at the thought of the many women in my groups who have no idea that we are being played. I thought back to the first woman that I saw expelled from the feminist group – the one who misgendered the trans woman in the news (a trans woman we all clearly knew was male) – she’d refused to play along, and therefore was a threat to the new order of feminism.
Who were the group administrators who had doled out their justice so swiftly and succinctly? I decided to look into it, checking out the personal profiles of the main admins. What I found in plain sight was that behind the name of the main admin was someone with short hair, very low body fat, ripped arms, and an unmistakably male jawline.
What I and so many other women had thought was a ‘safe space’ to discuss our concerns for the rights, safety, and dignity of women, was a discussion group being heavily censored by a man.
And so, I spent the next three months, despite feeling a profound sense of hopelessness, doing intensive research into the trans rights movement, studying their arguments and putting them to the test of critical thinking, before taking any definitive position on the subject. I soon discovered their opposition – a growing underground movement, known as ‘gender critical feminism’. However, the movement doesn’t often make it onto mainstream liberal social media news feeds, because it is so heavily censored and because its proponents are forced into anonymity and off-mainstream sites. Female erasure – the oppression of women’s voices – redefining the very concept of woman itself to mean something other than ‘adult human female’ – this is the existential threat to feminism.
We are on the precipice of losing our sex-based rights as adult human females! In a short matter of time, the word ‘sex’ will be replaced by ‘gender’, and ‘female’ will include those who simply identify as females, in all legal applications. With no objective reality with which gender is based, the word ‘women’ becomes meaningless. Laws that once enabled women to gather without the presence of males are disintegrating with every new nuance of gender identity ideology and alteration of the law. Our legal right to sovereignty is met with charges of ‘discrimination’ from those who were born male but self-identify as female. Our right to protect ourselves and our children is labeled as ‘oppressive’ to men. And, as language is changed in favour of gender ideology, we are no longer to speak of and name our own oppression. If being unable to gather without your oppressors present isn’t oppression, I can’t imagine what is.

Source: International Women’s Day and the Existential Threat to Feminism | Women Are Human

The first ever Detransition Awareness Day is today Friday 12th March – Lesbian and Gay News

Jo Bartosch reports on the first ever Detransition Awareness Day and asks Keira Bell why it is so important people hear destransitioners’ stories and experiences. Sometimes it seems like every day is an awareness day, but today’s is important. The first of its kind; Friday 12th March marks Detransition Awareness Day.

The rise in detransitioners corresponds to demographic changes. Over recent years there has been a shift in the profile of those seeking to switch sex; whereas once a handful of men sought to be recognised as women often toward middle-age, today many people begin their transition as adolescents. The ratio of male to female has also flipped; in recent years 75% of those referred to gender identity services in the UK are girls who wish to become boys.

It seems there is an informal veto on any attempts to investigate detransition. When in 2016 James Caspian, a counsellor and therapist, “became aware that there appear to be a growing number of people who have sought to reverse the surgery they had as part of a gender transition” he applied to Bath Spa University to study the phenomenon. Caspian explained on his Crowdfunder page why he wanted to research this group:

“Gender Reassignment Surgery includes surgery to the genitals, and for women changing to male, often removal of the breasts. I wanted to talk to the people who regretted their GRS and then had surgery to try to reverse the original surgery. There is no research into this phenomenon, and it is needed to develop insight into why this is happening and to learn from these peoples’ experiences.”

Bath Spa University initially granted permission for his Masters research and then blocked it over fears “it might attract unpleasant comments on social media, which they said might be detrimental to the reputation of the university.”

Source: The first ever Detransition Awareness Day is today Friday 12th March – Lesbian and Gay News

Detrans Voices: Detransition Stories, Resources, and Community | Detrans Voices

#DetransAwarenessDay Detrans Day of Awareness (12th March) was created to raise awareness and break down the stigma around detransition. We want to let other people who have detransitioned know that they are not alone. There is a flourishing community of detransitioned people who are finding peace, healing and fulfillment as they are. We also wish … Continue reading “Detrans Voices: Detransition Stories, Resources, and Community”

Source: Detrans Voices: Detransition Stories, Resources, and Community | Detrans Voices

Revealed: the secret trans-rights lobbying operation in parliament | The Spectator

A lot of this story is about something called an All Party Parliamentary Group. APPGs are, as the name says, groups of MPs and peers who work together to investigate, report and campaign on a particular issue. They are not parliamentary bodies in the sense of being part of the legislature; unlike select committees, they have no constitutional status or legal powers.

The APPG at the heart of this story is the APPG on LGBT+ Global Rights. The narrow fact of the story is that the group’s chair broke parliamentary rules on transparency by producing a report that was kept secret from the public but used to assemble a network of parliamentary support for a concerted attempt to persuade ministers to do something deeply controversial. Another, apparently unrelated fact, is that trans-rights campaign groups paid the equivalent of £80,000 to the APPG.

APPGs are supposed to operate under clear rules of transparency, so that the public can see and judge the actions of parliamentarians. Laws and rules that affect the public should be made in a way that is visible to us, after all.

Yet that document had been written and given – ‘quietly’ – to ministers more than two months before the public could have had any knowledge of it.

What does this story tell us? It’s more evidence that some people who campaign for trans rights policies make a deliberate choice to do so in private settings, where the wider public cannot know or assess their arguments.

Source: Revealed: the secret trans-rights lobbying operation in parliament | The Spectator

Defending women, legally – The Jerusalem Post

In Israel, religious law governs all family matters. There is no civil marriage or divorce, which (between Jews) are under the jurisdiction of government-sanctioned rabbinical courts. As specified in Jewish law, it is the husband who must grant a divorce Without a get, a woman cannot re-marry. She is considered an aguna, a so-called chained wife, and if she has children with another man they are regarded as mamzerim, children born of a forbidden sexual union, who will themselves be restricted from marrying any other Jew but a mamzer.

The Rackman Center annually assists some 500 women in receiving legal and psycho-social support and litigates 40 cases before the religious and civil courts in Israel, including the High Court of Justice (all pro bono). Trained volunteers run the center’s help line.

“What really distinguishes us from other centers is the unique combination and synergy between being a civil society organization of activists, together with the research, expertise and knowledge that we develop as an academic center,” explains Halperin-Kaddari, who served for 12 years as a member (and four years as vice president) of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Source: Defending women, legally – The Jerusalem Post

Full text of my House of Lords statement – The Glinner Update

My name is Graham Linehan, I am a writer. I’ve written several comedy programmes, the best-known of which is probably ‘Father Ted’ but I’d ask you today to briefly take me seriously because I believe the stakes could not be higher. Almost four years ago I saw that feminists were being bullied, harassed and silenced for standing up for their rights and their children’s rights. I decided to use my platform on Twitter to bring attention to what seemed to be an all-out assault on women, on their words, their dignity and their safety. Also, I saw that vulnerable children were being fast-tracked onto a medical pathway that carried severe long-term implications. My position is very simple. I believe everyone should be allowed to talk about these issues. In fact, I believe it is a moral imperative that we do so.

Source: Full text of my House of Lords statement – The Glinner Update